


That Time of the Month

by dontoverthinkthis



Category: The Aquabats! Super Show!
Genre: Found Family, Friendship, Love, Menstruation, Poor Katie, So Katie tells them RIGHT when she's on hers, The Aquabats Don't Know what Periods are, but they love each other - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:41:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24731767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontoverthinkthis/pseuds/dontoverthinkthis
Summary: Katie's on her period, and to her justified surprise, nobody in the Aquabats knows what a period is.
Collections: Katie and The Aquabats





	That Time of the Month

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from That Time of the Month by Harley Poe.

Katie wakes up feeling way chillier than usual. She’s used to the chill of the lab, but this feels different, and she shivers. Annoyance crawls up her spine and evolves into anger as she curls tighter into her blankets. Remembering her job, she groans and peels the covers back to start getting ready as she yawns.

When she opens her eyes, she sees the bright red stains on her pajama pants and her sheets, and she immediately realizes why she’s cold and irritable. Gasping, she leaps out of bed and runs to the closet, grabbing her clothes and a new pair of underwear before running to the bathroom. Luckily, no one is in the hall, allowing an easy escape into the bathroom and into the shower to clean herself. 

Unknownst to her, Jimmy’s battery finished charging just before she ran into the bathroom, and he heard her rushing about. “Katie?” Jimmy calls, curious as to the cause of the commotion. (Alliteration!) He steps out of his charging chamber and takes a look around the lab, his robotic blue eyes widening. The closet is in deliberate disarray, as if someone was looking for something in it. His gaze falls on Katie’s bed and his mouth falls open in horror. Her bed has large, bright red stains on it, and his scans confirm that it’s blood. “Oh no!” Jimmy runs out of his lab into the bunk room. “Everyone! Wake up! Something awful has happened to Katie!” 

“What?!” Everyone immediately wakes up and jumps out of their bunks (well, Crash accidentally falls out of his). “Katie!” 

“Follow me!” Jimmy leads his friends/family to the lab and sweeps his hand widely in the area. The Aquabats’ gazes fall on the bloody bed, and they gasp in horror.

“Is that-?” Ricky asks, unable to finish the question due to the horror he feels, gripping EagleBones’ bicep in anxious fear.

“I’m afraid so, Ricky,” Jimmy says grimly, “that’s Katie’s blood.”

“Does that mean-Katie’s....” Crash can’t finish as tears start dripping down his face. The Commander approaches Katie’s bed, looking for any remains of their beloved assistant. No, their beloved-

“What are you guys doing?!” The Aquabats whip around to see Katie, her hair straight with shiny wetness with a wide-eyed, disbelieved look on her face. She’s dressed in a fluffy white sweater and black jeans, with fuzzy grey socks on her feet and a towel over her shoulders.

“KATIE!” The Aquabats shout in relief. Crash runs to Katie and scoops her off the ground in a tight hug around her middle.

“OW! CRASH!” Katie screams, and Crash drops her, very startled at her scream, and she falls to the floor on her rear. “OW!” She rubs at her bruised backside as the Aquabats rush to her sides, Crash and the Commander taking one of her arms each and helping her stand back up.

“I’m sorry, Katie,” Crash says timidly, hanging his head down, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” The tears that were for her temporarily supposed demise are now for her scream of pain. 

Katie recognizes this and she sighs in regret. “It’s okay, Crash, I’m sorry for shouting,” she says, rubbing his arm. “Please don’t cry, I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. I’m just more sensitive right now. It’s that time of the month.” Her words effectively soothe Crash’s tears away, but it leaves him and the rest of the Aquabats confused.

“Huh? Time of the month? What’s that?” Crash asks curiously, tears forgotten. 

Katie lets out a short, annoyed breath before reminding herself to be patient. “It’s the crimson tide,” she explains. That only confuses the Aquabats more.

“Crimson tide? Like the football team?” Ricky asks excitedly for sports just as his face twists into horror. “Wait, did you get hurt playing football, Katie?!”

“No, Ricky, I didn’t get hurt playing football,” Katie almost snaps, but regains her composure. “I got my gift from Mother Nature today.” This piques EagleBones’ interest immediately. 

“Mother Nature gave you a gift? That’s awesome! What kind of powers do you have now?!” Katie’s already the woman of EagleBones’ dreams but her new powers...WHOA!

“I don’t have powers, EagleBones,” Katie says slowly, controlled as she starts becoming angry. “Aunt Flo visited, okay?”

“Your aunt’s here? Splendid! Where is she? Is she single?” The Commander asks. “I’ve been thinking of romance lately.” (He’d snuck in one of Ricky’s romance novels lately and finished it last night.)

“I don’t have an aunt named Flo, Commander!” Katie snaps, just as a thought hits. A sarcastic smile crosses her face. “Oh, okay. I get it. Very funny, guys, you got me. You’re just making fun of my period.”

Jimmy frowns, cocking his head. “Katie, I do not understand what quotation marks have to do with our current situation!” He tells her and the rest of the Aquabats nod in agreement.

Katie blinks as it dawns on her. “None of you have ANY idea what I’m talking about, do you?” The Aquabats all shake their heads, unblinking eyes trained on her. Sighing, she says “Go get dressed, and go to the main room. I’ll make breakfast and then we’ll talk, okay?” The Aquabats smile and nod, filtering out of the room in a single file line. Crash lingers a bit longer and Katie gives him a soft smile, patting his bicep. “Hey big guy. I’m really sorry for yelling at you. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

Crash brightens. “Waffles?”

Katie suppresses her grimace at the preparation of waffles as she was hoping to pour some cereal and maybe some toast for an easy breakfast, but she needs to make it up to Crash and the rest of the Aquabats. It genuinely isn’t their faults they don’t understand what Katie’s going through right now. So she smiles instead and pats Crash’s cheek. “Sounds good. Go put your uniform on, and I’ll get to it, okay?” Crash smiles brightly and goes to hug Katie, but he remembers her pain earlier and quickly withdraws, which makes both him and Katie sad. Katie sniffles to herself before wiping her surprise tears away and heading into the kitchen.

On her way, she notices the (at first subtle) cramps getting worse. Rushing against her weary body’s protests, she enters the kitchen and immediately starts digging for the spare pain medicine they keep in there just in case, her cramps worsening by the second. Her fingertips brush against the bottle and she leans on the counter on her tiptoes, wrapping her fingers around it and yanking it out of the cabinets. She unscrews the lid as fast as she can but in her haste, the bottle slips out of her fingers and drops to the floor, the contents spilling all over the kitchen floor. Katie’s eyes go wide in disbelief and she sinks to the floor, holding her midsection and bursting into tears-partially from pain, partially from hormones.

The Aquabats, on their way to the main area as per Katie’s directions, hear the noise and somebody sobbing, and run into the main area. The crying comes from the kitchen and they run to find Katie on the floor sobbing her heart out in the middle of the kitchen floor, among several white capsules. 

“Katie!” Ricky rushes to her side and kneels, enfolding her in his arms. Katie immediately leans into his arms and grips him like he’s a lifeline, sobbing into his rashguard. 

“What’s wrong?” EagleBones asks in concern and near-panic, genuflecting and patting Katie’s back and shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“It-it hurts,” Katie hiccups out as tears pour down her face. 

“Does this mean breakfast is off?” The Commander asks, and promptly receives a vicious glare from EagleBones and disbelieved stares from Jimmy, Crash and Ricky. 

“I-I’m sorry I’m being useless,” Katie sobs, staining Ricky’s rashguard with her tears and mucus. 

Jimmy scans her and sees notable levels of stress on her body. “Katie, your body and mind are undergoing significant yet brief levels of stress,” he says gently, “and it all seems to be related to your hormones.”

“It’s my menstrual cycle, guys,” Katie sniffs, calming down enough to explain. 

“Men-drawl cycle?” Crash repeats.

“Menstrual cycle,” Katie says clearly for him. “Or period. It’s a monthly thing, you see. Every month my body changes. Or rather my ‘down parts’.” She takes a hand off Ricky to motion to her nether-regions. “I bleed out of my vagina for at least three days.” Everyone’s faces morph into complete and utter horror and she quickly says, “Wait, it’s okay! It’s natural! It’s normal!”

“How is bleeding down there NORMAL?!” The Commander screams. “You need a doctor! Or a blood transplant!” 

“I’ll prep you for emergency surgery!” Jimmy adds helpfully, a needle appearing out of his index finger.

“I don’t need a doctor, a blood transplant, or emergency surgery!” Katie cries before calming back down. “Help me up, please.” Ricky and EagleBones take hold of one arm of hers each and help her to her feet. Thankfully, her cramps aren’t as painful as before. “It’s a monthly thing that prepares me, and others who menstruate, for pregnancy.”

“You’re PREGGERS?!” Ricky shouts in shock.

“No! I’m not! That’s why I’m having a period right now!” Katie explains. “It proves I’m not pregnant, just as it’s prepping my body for pregnancy in the future, if I want to be pregnant. And unfortunately it’s painful and sometimes it’s really painful. My body is disposing of some of its lining to make room for new, and it’s not a painless process. It also means my emotions are amplified, due to the hormones Jimmy mentioned. So, during these next few days, I’ll be crying or getting mad a lot, but not because of you, because of hormones.”

“So you and many other people go through this awful bloody process EACH MONTH? For preggers?!” The Commander repeats in his own way, and Katie nods with a sympathetic smile. “That’s...that’s THE COOLEST THING EVER!”

“So METAL,” EagleBones agrees enthusiastically, “you are metal, Katie! So is everyone else who goes through this period!”

“I’d say this makes you the strongest of us all!” Ricky grins. 

Katie blinks in disbelief, then a smile of joy crosses her face. She’s never thought of her periods as cool or metal (or herself as “strong”), but her friends the Aquabats have given her a new perspective and have made her feel better. “Thank you, everyone,” she says, wrapping an arm around EagleBones and Ricky and hugging them close. “Group hug? A CAREFUL one?” The rest of the Aquabats joyfully join the three and hug (carefully). “Oh, I forgot to tell you one more thing about periods. Since my body’s doing a painful cleanse, cravings are very common to restore strength.” She gives Crash a smile. “And I’m craving...waffles?”

“You heard her, Aquabats! To the Waffle Kingdom!” The Commander orders and everyone cheers, heading to the front section of the BattleTram to drive to the waffle restaurant. EagleBones supplies her with a pain pill, which she gratefully takes, and she links arms with Crash on the way to their seats.

The Aquabats quickly learn to track Katie’s periods. They don’t like it when she gets angry faster or cries easier, but she always apologizes and makes it up to them somehow. Despite her moodiness during her periods, the Aquabats secretly begin to look forward to blood moons. Ricky times his cheat days to Katie’s periods and Crash always looks forward to eating a lot with her. JImmy enjoys documenting her body’s changes (for SCIENCE) and the Commander likes that he can help her a lot, be it getting her a blanket or a snack or little trinkets to make the ‘blood rain’ better. (She once yelled at him for saying that during one of her periods, but admitted when she was calm she thought it was funny.) As for EagleBones, he adores being there for her, helping her express her anger, or more often, being her shoulder to cry on when she hears a sad song or sees that kitten commercial, which includes plenty of hugs and shoulder pats. (Not that Katie isn’t affectionate, quite the opposite, but sometimes they’re shy around each other.) Katie’s very relieved, and the Aquabats don’t quite get why. The Aquabats take care of each other.

**Author's Note:**

> I think in a future epi/webisode the Aquabats should cover menstruation and how lots of people have them. What? Nothin' to be ashamed of. PERIODS!


End file.
